


call out my name

by archieknight



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Canon Era, Dream Pack, Joseph Kavinsky Lives, Joseph Kavinsky is His Own Warning, M/M, Rehabilitation, so just at the start of bllb? dont overthink it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-11
Updated: 2018-06-11
Packaged: 2019-05-20 23:35:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 5,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14904326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/archieknight/pseuds/archieknight
Summary: AU in which Kavinsky survives the Fourth of July and spends 3 months in rehab.





	1. rehabilitation

“Piece of shit!” Ronan shouted, slamming the car door behind him. “Why the fuck did you call me?”

Kavinsky looked moments away from fainting. His skin was pale and he had heavy bags under his eyes, not to mention he’d lost a considerable amount of weight since Ronan last saw him. His skin was sagged like he was 30 years older than he was. Ronan realised now to what extent the drugs were holding Kavinsky together. He’d fallen apart.

“I- I had no one else to call,” he replied weakly, then began trying to tear off his hospital band with his teeth. 

“Prokopenko? Jiang? Any of your lot! Not me,” Ronan spat. “I’m not helping you.” 

“You’re here though,” Kavinsky said. All the trademark Kavinsky nerve with none of the attitude. Ronan held back a smug smile. “And… Prokopenko’s dead.”

Ronan hadn’t seen him since the Fourth of July. He barely recognised him, he was a ghost of his past self. No, Ronan had seen ghosts up close-- Kavinsky was a corpse, his spirit ripped away. He supposed Kavinsky was better off like this. Sober. He realised he’d never seen the boy’s eyes truly until now, either hidden behind dilated pupils or white rimmed sunglasses. They were a pale, flat green. 

Ronan rolled his eyes, “You’ve got a whole pack of them.”

“They won’t help me.”

“Neither will I!” Ronan jeered.

The wind blew, cutting through Kavinsky. He coughed. “Please,” he said then took a deep breath. “Ronan.”

Ronan felt sick just hearing Kavinsky’s voice, and even worse when he said his name. Fuck him. He should keep that name out of his dirty mouth after what he did. Why did he think he deserved saving? 

“You could have killed Matthew,” Ronan said, putting all his effort into keeping his voice level.

“I know,” was all Kavinsky said. There was regret in there somewhere, but Ronan couldn’t find apology. The rat had probably never apologised for anything in his life. 

It didn’t take long for him to snap. 

“You know?! Of course you fucking know, is that what they tell you in rehab? Accept what you’ve done? Well the next step is to fucking apologize, did they teach you that?” Ronan shouted, earning a few worried glances from visiting families making their way through the hospital doors. 

“I’m sorry.”

He strode forward and got in Kavinsky’s face. He didn’t remember being so much taller than him, but the boy had shrunk back into himself. It was all ego. He pointed the tip of his finger into Kavinsky’s sunken chest. “I don’t fucking want it. You’re rotten, Kavinsky, that’s all I can say. So deeply fucking evil to the core that there’s nothing left of you. You can’t hide that anymore. You’re sober and alone and it’s your own fucking fault,” he seethed.

“I want to make it okay, Ronan,” he pleaded, trying to reach out to grab Ronan’s arm. He shrugged him off, looking him up and down with disdain. 

“Too late.”

Kavinsky swallowed hard. He knew this was going to be hard, but he wanted to leave that godforsaken hospital. Now he wanted nothing more than to crawl back into group therapy and disappear. He wouldn't. He was 18 years old now, it was time to (for lack of a better word) grow some balls. 

“You know,” he started, hoping Ronan would look at him when he spoke. “I came out in there. Accepted that I had some internalized homophobia or whatever. I don’t know. My psych said it’s something to do with my dad.”

“Well I could have told you that,” Ronan snorted. He was looking around nervously, but he didn’t leave yet.

Pursing his lips, Kavinsky cast his eyes to the ground. He didn’t want to look up at Ronan. Shame had been piling up in the back of his mind for years, he was only accepting it now, a heavy weight to carry. He felt exposed by it. 

“Are you actually clean now?” He asked tenitavely. 

He turned around to look at the building, then back to Ronan. “Where do you think I just was?”

“You easily could have kept dreaming up your pills in there.”

“But I didn’t,” Kavinsky said. 

Ronan raised an eyebrow, “And I’m supposed to believe you?”

“Lynch! I look like shit,” he almost laughed.

“You always look like shit. Withdrawal or not.” 

Ronan was cracking a smile now. He hated Kavinsky with every fibre of his being. He was a violent, attention-seeking sociopath. He shouldn’t have even answered the call. He shouldn’t have driven there to see him. He shouldn’t have said, “Get in the car.”


	2. requiem

It felt weird to be in the car with Ronan Lynch and going under 90 mph. 

Kavinsky was quiet and contemplative, looking out of the window at passing blurs of Henrietta. A shithole town, he’d always thought. Once he was going to raze it to the ground. Now, he didn’t know how to walk across it. He hadn’t seen much of Henrietta since the Fourth of July party. He was admitted to hospital after the incident with the dream creatures, and after that labelled a danger to himself and others. 

He was set 3 months in a rehabilitation center and mandatory therapy. It wasn’t a bad deal. He didn’t deserve better. It meant he was home just in time for school, which he couldn't say he was all that happy about. But he was supposed to be getting his life back on track, and school was the first step. 

“Aglionby dorms, right?” Ronan asked. 

That too. He couldn’t go back home after social services got involved, and then the school cast its verdict and there he was, rooming with his old pack. He didn’t know if he could see them like this. They were probably just as bad as they were 3 months ago-- conscienceless. 

He nodded. 

The school looked daunting now, framed by heavy clouds. He felt like a banished king sneaking back into his castle. The scenery was familiar, beneath him, yet he was so afraid. He couldn’t hide his fear anymore. He was supposed to face his fears head on now-- Anxiety was a good sign. It didn’t make it any easier. 

The car stopped. “You can get out now,” Ronan said, voice flat. 

“Thank you,” Kavinsky replied, grabbing his backpack.

“Don’t,” Ronan cut him off, then breathed deeply through his nose. 

He got out without another word, throwing his bag over his shoulder and sighing before he headed towards the entrance. He passed each door with his head down before he got to his room. He felt ridiculous, like a fucking freshman. 

“Joseph Kavinsky, back from the dead!” yelled a familiar voice. Jiang was lounging on his bed, having just thrown his phone down onto the mattress to stare in disbelief at Kavinsky. “We were told you’d be rooming with us, we didn’t fucking believe it. Where have you been?” 

Kavinsky surveyed the room. The other two were by the window, just as shocked; Swan was putting out his joint when the door opened and wafting away the smoke, and Skov was now picking it back up. Fuck, he missed the smell. He closed the door behind him and threw someone’s jacket over the crack. He didn’t need to get expelled before the year even started. 

When he looked back up, the joint had made its way to Jiang, who offered it to him. He didn’t follow up his question, he must have guessed that Prokopenko’s death had gotten to Kavinsky, that he went on an 3 month bender. It wasn’t like that, not really.

Kavinsky forced a laugh, “Nah, where did you even get that? Smells like shit.”

“Your old guy,” Skov said. Jiang nodded, extending his arm further towards Kavinsky.

Weed-- he could do that. It wasn’t addictive, plus he never really liked it much. Uppers were his thing; speed, coke, whatever he could pull out of his dreams. This wouldn’t affect his sobriety, and it would get the boys off his back. He took it from Jiang’s hand and took a drag. He held it for longer than usual to try and not be suspicious. 

“Should we get this end of summer party-- or should I say, Kavinsky return party?-- on the road then?” Swan grinned-- Kavinsky remembered him having more teeth the last time they spoke.

“You come here in the Mitsu?” Jiang asked. “I need some competition tonight.”

He shook his head, “It got trashed with the rest. And I’m pretty much cut off on money so I can’t get a new one.”

“Huh?” Jiang asked, like Kavinsky was kidding. He wasn’t. He was stuck with a monthly allowance now, which was anything but meagre, but still he wasn’t used to have any restriction on spending. He could dream another Mistubishi, but not in time. He hadn’t stolen anything from his dreams in weeks, and not anything big since the Fourth of July. 

“You’re kidding?” Skov scoffed. 

“Somebody died at one of my parties, did you not think that had consequences?”

“It’s happened before,” Swan shrugged. “It’s not our fault.”

“This one was! And it was Proko! Did you not grieve him?”

Skov stood from his perch by the window and put a hand out to Kavinsky. “Dude, calm the fuck down. Are you tweaking right now?” 

Jiang was inspecting Kavinsky, eyebrows furrowed, but he didn’t say anything. Kavinsky took a long drag of the joint and flicked it at Skov. He held in the smoke as long as he could, savouring the burning feeling in his chest. “Fuck you, Skov.”

“All I’m saying is, I think you need something stronger right now. I get that.”

“No, you fucking don’t,” He spat. 

“Proko was your best friend. We get that,” Swan said.

When he looked back at Skov, he was digging through his pockets, then pulled out a bag of pills. Kavinsky didn’t recognise them, and he was a walking encyclopedia of drugs. “Come out with us tonight. We never got to have a proper send off for Proko together,” Skov said, brandishing the bag.

“Did you go to the funeral?” Swan asked.

“His family didn’t want us there,” Kavinsky lied. Prokopenko’s death meant nothing to anyone but him, but that didn’t matter because it meant everything to him. It was the death of dreams, and the birth of reality. 

“Is that a yes?” Skov smirked.


	3. relapse

Kavinsky was on fire. Whatever Skov had given him, he loved it. Maybe it was absence making the heart grow fonder, but he’d never felt better in his life. It was like he was experiencing everything tenfold, which was a nice change from beige walls and group therapy. 

“Fuck, this is so good,” He groaned, smiling wide. 

“This new shit doesn’t fuck around,” Swan smirked. 

Kavinsky took a deep breath, “You’re right.”

It was dark now, but he could see by the light of the fire. It was just the four of them, which felt strangely lonely with Proko’s absence, he supposed the fire made up for it. He wanted to stick his hand in it, but he wasn’t that high. Yet.

“I need coke,” he sniffed in anticipation. “Jiang, do you have any coke?”

He smiled and clicked, “Always.” Then he passed him the bag of his leftovers. Kavinsky gummed it without a second thought. 

Everything felt right, in an oddly nostalgic way. Why? Because everything was going wrong.


	4. recovery

He woke up that morning in his Aglionby dorm to the sound of birds. It was unreasonably early, but he was dragged upwards by his need to vomit. He ran to the bathroom and emptied the contents of his stomach. He was on fire again, but not in a good way. His insides burned with whatever he’d consumed the previous night and his head scorched with pain. Regret hurt the most. 

_Weak._

He was so weak. One day out of rehab and he had already relapsed. All that work was for nothing. He was nothing without the daily reminders to be better, without the therapy and the surveillance and the encouragement. 

He crawled back to the room, and searched his bag for his phone. Thankfully, he hadn’t taken it out with him the previous night. He wanted to call his sponsor, or his therapist-- he had the number somewhere. But he could already hear the disappointment in their voices, he didn’t need that. 

So he called Ronan, who wouldn’t be disappointed, he’d be unsurprised. 

“Ronan,” he croaked. Acid scalded his throat when he spoke. “Can you come and get me?”

His voice was hazy with sleep or lack thereof (Kavinsky suspected the latter). “What? Where are you?”

“Dorms,” Kavinsky replied. 

“Where you’re supposed to be,” Ronan said. 

He swallowed hard and painfully, “I can’t be here.”

Ronan sighed and hung up. 

Kavinsky let his head fall back onto the ground. The rest were passed out and would stay that way until mid-afternoon, not that they would help in anyway. He was hanging, that was it. Relapses happen, it’s not the end. He was warned of this, of temptations. He just thought he’d last more than 24 hours.

_Pathetic._

He was lying on his floor with vomit on his shirt and coke still under his nails. He was glad his nose was blocked, because he must have smelled awful. He had slept in his jeans and the stains on them were the only indicators of the previous nights events; mud, ash, beer. He felt worthless. 

The sound of footsteps eventually cut through the crescendo of self-deprecating thoughts and incessant birdsong. Thankful for the distraction, he turned onto his side and hunched up. 

“Jesus Christ, you’re a scumbag,” said the pair of boots in front of his face. He craned his neck to see Ronan Lynch looking down at him. “One day out of rehab? Why did you even try?”

“Court ordered,” he wheezed with an uneasy smile. 

Ronan ran a hand over his head and yawned, “Get up. You’re not doing yourself any good staying here.”


	5. repentance

“Why are you helping me?” Kavinsky asked, cutting through the eerie silence in the car. 

Ronan tightened his grip on the wheel, his whole body tense. When he got the call, he wasn’t sleeping. He was in church. He’d been there all night, trying to think. With Kavinsky back in town, he felt like he’d been taken back in time. He’d changed in those months, just as Kavinsky had. 

He didn’t need Kavinsky anymore, but Kavinsky needed him. 

“You called, didn’t you?” he said.

“I didn’t expect you to pick up, either time. I just…”

“Just what? Have no other friends?” 

It was true, Kavinsky had lived a hollow life, a life Ronan could always walk in and out of as he pleased. He had a chance to make meaning out of it, and he’d fucked it up. Now Ronan was taking him away from it, after everything wrong Kavinsky had done to him. 

His chest ached. 

He looked at Ronan, who was biting his lip with his eyes trained on the road. He forced his shoulders down and let his head fall back a little. He drove them to a nearby cafe and ordered two coffees and a sandwich. 

“Eat, you look like you’re about to keel over,” He said.

“Thanks,” Kavinsky said, uneasy.

Ronan sipped his coffee and stared out of the window. He was hardly looking at Kavinsky. That was a sign of times changing, because before he’d never take his eyes off him-- and vice versa, it was like they were locked in when they looked at each other. Ronan had finally got out. 

“Three months sober,” Ronan muttered. 

“Skov is a hard man to say no to,” Kavinsky replied. Ronan didn’t even need to ask the question. 

“So were you,” Ronan glanced at him for just moment, then back to the window. “Though, I guess you still are.”

Kavinsky pulled his knees up to his chest. “You don’t have to be here.”

“You know I do,” Ronan said flatly.

“You don’t. I can go back to rehab, or-- I could-”

“No,” interrupted Ronan, “You don’t need to back to rehab. You can get over this.”

“I don’t know if I can,” he admitted. 

“Well, you fucking are,” Ronan bit, then turned to Kavinsky. “Prove to me you’re not a coward.”

Kavinsky looked down, not wanting to meet Ronan’s gaze. Maybe he was a coward. When he looked back up, Ronan was standing up to take a moment outside. Kavinsky didn’t follow him. Outside the window, he saw Ronan take out his phone and call someone. It was rare for Ronan to answer his phone, nevermind make a call himself. 

He walked back in and finished his coffee without sitting back down. “Eat that,” he pointed to the sandwich. “We’re leaving.”

The look on Richard Gansey III’s face when Kavinsky entered Monmouth Manufacturing was… Surprisingly neutral. He guessed Ronan had called to warn him or something, because he didn’t get turned away at the door. He made a mental note to thank him when he got the opportunity. As there were more amends to be made than just Lynch.

Ronan set up a makeshift mattress on his floor out of a few spare blankets for Kavinsky, who watched him awkwardly as he did. He was doing a kind deed with such aggression and reluctance. This struck with Kavinsky as a matter of influence. Richard Gansey was a textbook good person, and his morals rubbed off on Ronan. Or maybe it wasn’t, maybe Kavinsky wasn’t putting enough faith in Ronan’s character here. It was just that Ronan was a good person, but reluctant to show Kavinsky that. 

“What are you staring at?” Ronan sighed.

“Nothing,” he responded quickly. “But… I still don’t get why.”

“I’m doing you a favour. Stop fucking asking me that.”

“I don’t deserve it, Ronan.”

Ronan’s shoulders sagged and he sat down on his bed. “Are you truly sorry?” 

“Every day in there I wanted to reach out and apologise to you, to Ma- to your brother.”

 _“If your brother or sister sins against you, rebuke them; and if they repent, forgive them. Even if they sin against you seven times in a day and seven times come back to you saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive them,”_ Ronan recited the verse. 

Kavinsky was stunned. He knew Ronan was Catholic, but he’d thought that was just shit he had to do on Sundays. He’d never thought of him as a true believer, or someone to remember something like that. Truth was, Ronan needed all the guidance he could get. 

It was so silent in that moment. In that moment, Kavinsky was inching closer to understanding Ronan Lynch. Too close, it seemed, because fate had willed him away when the sandwich he’d had early bounced off his stomach, ejecting itself onto Ronan’s floor. 

“Nevermind what I just said,” Ronan groaned. 

Kavinsky choked a laugh through a mouthful of stomach acid. “I repent. I’ll clean it up.”

“That’s just God damn blasphemy,” he joked, pulling the collar of his shirt over his nose.


	6. rescue

Life is a very strange thing. You can end up in the place you always wanted to be by the most unexpected of circumstances. For example, Kavinsky had always wanted to get into Ronan’s pants, in the metaphorical sense. Now he was literally wearing only Ronan’s clothes, since his own were sodden with booze and vomit.

He’d been forced into a cold shower, so if he didn’t have shakes before, he definitely did now. It would be so easy to go back to the dorms, score another gram off Skov and go back to his old life, forget about Ronan and his kindness. He wouldn’t, though, he couldn’t. 

Maybe he’d actually become a good person himself, perhaps some of Dick Gansey’s decency would rub off on him too. Who would he become?

He questioned this lying on the floor of Ronan’s room. However, he also questioned why on earth they chose to live in an abandoned factory. Underneath the scent of fresh bleach that he’d used to clean his vomit was the draft of cold, damp air that trickled through the floorboards. It made him shiver and burn up-- back to step one. 

But, he’d done it before and he’d do it again. Then, he could prove to Ronan he wasn’t a coward. 

He eventually fell asleep. He used to think his dreams were more intense when he was on drugs, but in rehab he learned that during withdrawal his dreams were more vivid and inescapable that he’d ever imagined. 

In his dream, he was in his car-- his old car, one of them anyway. The hood was wrapped around a tree in a mangled mess and smoke was coming from it. He pulled at the handle of the door, trying to get out. The smell of smoke and petrol was suffocating him, and his limbs were too weak to let him out. 

He tried to start the car, drive backwards away from the tree, but the branches just curled around the car in retaliation. Next he tried to roll down the window, but when he tried, bars appeared to roll up in the way. He punched the glass, his fist then colliding with the solid metal bars and near breaking his knuckle.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he muttered to himself. Then he remembered: two dreamers, one room. “Lynch!” He shouted over the bashing of branches on crushed metal. He coughed, wafting the smoke away from his face so he could see out of the windows, just barely. 

His eyes were watering from the smoke and he was lightheaded. Even in his dreams his body was weak and lethargic because of the withdrawal. Perhaps that was just his mind. 

Something pulled at the door handle, shaking it. Kavinsky was startled, he could faintly see the silhouette through the smoke that could only be Ronan. He sat up and tried to push the door from the other end, resorting to kicking it. 

Eventually it came loose which an uncharacteristic ripping sound, and Kavinsky threw himself out of the door. Ronan fell back with the force of it. He shuffled away from the tree and the car quickly, only catching a glimpse of the ivy that had wrapped itself around the car. It was still moving, covering every inch of the metal. The tree had now wrapped its’ trunk around the entire engine.

Ronan grabbed Kavinsky and dragged him backwards. “Don’t just fucking stare at it!”

The car erupted in flames, charring the wood of the tree and setting the ivy alight. It was like the forest was protecting itself. Kavinsky didn’t take his eyes off it. He’d seen enough cars blow up in his life, he understood the damage they caused. Now he realised the power of this stupid dream forest, and why Ronan cared so much about it. 

He remembered a text he’d gotten from Ronan before the Fourth of July party. _Would you stop if you knew it was destroying the world?_ He didn’t believe Ronan. He didn’t believe the scale of this, that the world was more than a straight line of road he could hit 100 on. He didn’t understand the deeper magic that came with all of this. 

You saved the thief, hissed the forest. And then they woke up.

A sob wrenched through Kavinsky as he jolted up. He was on Ronan’s floor and it was still dark outside. He squirmed and made for the door, before realizing he wasn’t trapped anymore. He eyes flickered around the room to Ronan, who was sat up on his bed looking at Kavinsky, his face neutral. 

Nothing had came with them-- nothing had survived to be able to-- except the blood on Kavinsky’s knuckles and the glass lodged in his skin. Ronan stood up slowly, approaching him like he was a nervous animal. He took Kavinsky’s hands in his own and started to pick out the shards of glass. His hands were still shaking, but Ronan just held them still until he’d taken out all the glass. 

He was holding back sobs in his chest until they came out in hiccups. Ronan watched mortified as he started bashing his bloody fist against his head in anger at himself. Ronan outstretched his arm and his head collided with his chest, muffling sobs. He could feel Kavinsky’s grip on his shirt as he let out ugly sounds, and nervously wrapped his outstretched arm around Kavinsky’s shoulders. 

He shushed him softly, “You’re awake. I promise, you’re awake.”

He was a world away from the man he was 3 months ago. King of his castle, higher than ever, had the world wrapped around his finger-- it was all a delusion. This was the real Joseph Kavinsky; trapped in a burning car. 

He wanted to scream and bash at Ronan’s chest until he let him go, he wanted to walk straight out of Monmouth and find the nearest fucking dealer of the cheapest fucking drug he could find, he wanted Ronan to tell him not to do it, to stop him, to drag him back inside the same way he pulled him away from the car in his dreams. He didn’t do any of that, he just stayed where he was, staining Ronan’s shirt with blood and tears. And Ronan didn’t let go.


	7. reformation

Joseph felt alien in his Aglionby uniform. He tugged at the sleeves of his shirt and his tie uncomfortable as he looked at himself in the mirror. He agonized over every detail of his uniform, but he knew he was just distracting himself from the bigger problem: seeing the other three at school.

Luckily his next distraction was somehow even scarier: Getting into the car with Gansey to school. 

They were both waiting downstairs for him, as Ronan must have been ready for hours (Joseph suspected he hadn’t slept again that night). Something had changed for Gansey; his hair was less well-kept, the bags under his eyes darker, his smile just a little more unsure. Perhaps Joseph was only noticing now, having seen Gansey as nothing but insufferably perfect all this time. Everything seemed so much more real now he was sober. 

He wiped the sweat from his forehead and decided he was ready. He met the two outside. Uncomfortably, their conversation stopped when he appeared out of the door. He pursed his lips and looked at Ronan, who immediately sprung into action. He walked around the car-- Joseph briefly thought back to its forgery, and the original in ruins, but shoved the thought away. 

Following suit, he got into the back of the car. During the drive Gansey spoke about a man called Malory, who he’d been working with on some kind of history thing. Joseph tried to keep up, vaguely remembering Gansey’s incessant researching. It was something you just picked up; the sky is blue, water is wet, Dick Gansey has a history boner and wants everybody to know about it.

Clearly, Gansey enjoyed talking about it, so Joseph asked. “Wait, who are you looking for?” He asked, his voice barely reaching from the back of the car. His throat was awfully sore, not just from the detox but the hoarse crying the previous night. 

“Oh,” Gansey said. His furrowed his eyebrows for a moment. “You never got the full picture,” he murmured, thinking out loud. He cleared his throat, “Though, I don’t think it would quite pique your interest.”

Ronan hummed, “He’s a dreamer. Tell him.”

Gansey patiently explained the ley lines, the forest-- Cabeswater, the dead king-- Glendower. Joseph nodded along, but honestly he felt like he was still hallucinating. It wasn’t just senseless, violent magic that circled Henrietta. This was the something more that Ronan and Gansey cared so much about. 

They got to the school before Gansey could finish, and a wave of anxiety washed back over Joseph. When they got out of the car, Kavinsky wanted nothing more than to just get to his class quickly, but he knew that wasn’t going to happen. 

“You ran out on us, K!” shouted Jiang from across the fields, and then they were racing his way. 

They were laughing with each other as they got closer, and Joseph felt trapped again. Skov strode across to him and pulled an arm over his shoulders. “Still hot for Lynch, I see,” he whispered in Joseph’s ear with a laugh. 

“Alright, fuck off now,” Joseph forced a laugh, trying to get them off his back, literally. 

“I told you that shit was good! Hell of a hangover though,” Swan grinned. 

Ronan took a step towards them. “Don’t you lot have classes? NA meetings?” he asked. They laughed and shrugged him off. “No, I really mean it. Fuck off.” 

Skov let Kavinsky go and squared his shoulders in effort to look… menacing? Like he was having a bowel movement? No one could be sure. He walked closer to Ronan and said, “Your boyfriend can speak for himself, Lynch.” He turned his head to the side in Joseph’s direction. “K?”

“What are you up to, Skov? You’re acting like you’re running this shit,” Joseph mused, placing himself between Skov and Ronan. “Got a lot of fucking balls trying to take my place and invite me back thinking I’m gonna be your bitch like Swan is?” He sucked a breath through his teeth. 

“You go MIA for three months, somebody had to,” he replied, looking him up and down, unimpressed.

Joseph smiled, eyes dark and teeth bared. This was a Kavinsky smile, a smile for running red lights and stealing from dreams. “You wanna take my throne? Keep it, and leave me out of your kingdom.” 

Skov spat onto the ground by Joseph’s feet and muttered, “Faggot.” 

“You’re done with them for good?” Ronan asked once they left, his hands pushed down in his pockets as he kicked some gravel.

“How could I ever go back?” Joseph replied with a shrug, then made his way to class.


End file.
